Wanna Bet?
by The Anti-Stratigist
Summary: The ultimate shinobi power. Gambling.
1. Chapter 1

Wanna bet?

Chapter 1

_In spite of being a very cute little boy, one Uzumaki Naruto was destined to be a powerhouse, and Sarutobi Hiruzen had big plans for him. Plans that became much more complicated when Naruto was six years old._

.

The Third was taking a rest from paperwork to look out over the beautiful hidden village he ruled when the blond boy he thought of as a grandson came barging into his office, "Jiji!" the little boy said, "I don wanna be a ninja no more."

A bit flummoxed Hiruzen replied, "Really? Any particular reason why?"

The six year old grinned, "Weasle-kun taught me how to play poker and I didn't lose a single round. I figure if I'm tha good, I shouldn't be a shinobi."

Sarutobi hmmed in thought, "So you're going to give up being a ninja to become a professional gambler are you? You know it's very possible that Weasle-kun let you win because he felt bad about the idea of almost literally taking candy from a baby."

Naruto scowled in indignation, "No way old man! I'd be a great gambler! I bet dere's no bet I could lose!"

The Sandaime nodded, "Perhaps, but did you ever consider that maybe you'd be equally good as a shinobi?"

The little boy snorted, "Yeah right! I bet I'd graduate dead last from d'academy."

Hiruzen smiled, "Done."

The six year old blinked in surprise then frowned, "Cheater."

A/N So this is my new story. I'll probably use it as a stress reliever from all the serious stuff I write for school. It's a quasai-drabble story and in _no way_ should be taken seriously. Because I am in school, I'll probably only be updating "Wanna Bet?" once or twice a week. I hope y'all enjoy it. :) TAS

P.S. Thank you to everyone who reviewed Team Psych, I Spy and my other stories. You have no idea how much y'alls encouragement still helps me want to write. Especially when one of my papers gets shredded by a professor.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_Naruto quickly found that it took a lot of effort to be dead last but not flunk himself out of the academy. In his first two years at the academy he almost graduated early and had to actually fail the final exam to keep from losing his bet. He soon found that the best way to be dead last was to do nothing, so he quickly got into the habit of being lazy. That got boring, but then he failed his way back to the class the kids his own age were in and he found kindred spirits._

_First there was Kiba, he loved to make bets with Naruto._

.

Iruka walked into class with a small amount of trepidation. The dreaded Uzumaki had joined his class this year after failing the final entrance exams for the second year in a row. Normally having a confirmed failure in his class wouldn't make him so nervous, but this particular failure seemed to go from being unwilling to do anything to being completely insane.

Praying that today would be one of Naruto's lazy days, Iruka quickly got into the rhythm of teaching his class of eight year olds. However, about two hours in the chunin spotted the Uzumaki sharing a whispered conversation with Kiba in the back row. They were saying something about a bet and words, but Iruka didn't bother trying to figure it out as he shouted, "Kiba! Naruto! Pay attention!"

The teacher saw the Inuzuka jab the blond boy in the ribs and Naruto sat up straight and shouted, "I'm gonna be Hokage someday!"

Ino snorted, "Yeah right. You have to be a good shinobi to do that and we all know you're an idiot."

Once again Kiba jabbed Naruto in the ribs and, with a glare at the Inuzuka, the blond shouted, "Believe it!"

.

_After Kiba came Shikamaru._

_._

A few months later Ino and Sakura were trying to get together a game of ninja tag. Kiba joined in and, with a bet, got Naruto in as well. Now the group was pestering Shikamaru to join.

"No," the Nara said, "running around is far too troublesome."

Naruto's eyes teared up as he said, "Wow, so lazy," he paused to sniffle, "your my hero. After one round can I join you?"

Shikamaru shrugged, and everyone else muttered about how crazy the Uzumaki was. But really they were starting to become immune to his nuttiness.

True to his word after one round of ninja tag Naruto went and joined Shikamaru at aimlessly staring at clouds. By the end of that lunch break the blond boy and the Nara were fast friends, but no one could figure out how it happened when neither boy had spoken one word.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_Four years passed quickly for the Uzumaki, and while the adults always saw the boy as crazy, his classmates started to see him as just Naruto. By the time it was time to graduate Naruto had a school wide underground gambling racket going and although the students quickly learned not to bet against Naruto, when he was the dealer the racket was the thing to be doing in the school yard. The teachers could never understand why all the kids liked the crazy Uzumaki so much when he was only exceeded in laziness by his best friend Shikamaru._

_Naruto was happy with his place though. Not only was he still dead last, but he was well known for his betting. Well, at least among the kids his age._

_To most of the teachers though, the blond boy was considered a monster only surpassed by the Kyuubi itself. It was this general hatred among the adults that gave one Tochuro Mizuki an idea._

.

Mizuki watched from the academy window as Naruto sat listlessly on the academy tree swing watching as all his fellow age mates were congratulated on becoming genin. With silent steps he made his way from the window to the branch above Naruto and gestured for Naruto to follow him to somewhere more private. When they got there the chunin said, "Don't feel bad about failing it happens to the best of us from time to time." When the blond just gave a grunt Mizuki continued, "I know it never feels good to fail though so I convinced Iruka to allow a makeup test."

Naruto yawned, "No thanks. As long as stay dead last I don't care how long it takes to graduate."

The instructor blinked in surprise, 'What the heck?' he thought. Well if passing with his age mates wasn't enough there had to be someway. Maybe, there was a rumor that the crazy Uzumaki really liked bets, lets see if it was accurate, "How about a bet Naruto?"

The blond immediately perked up, "What kind of bet?"

"I bet that you can't steal the scroll of seals and learn one jutsu off of it without getting caught." Mizuki said, "If you do pull it off then I graduate you as dead last in your class. However, if you lose, or don't do it I graduate you as first in your class."

Naruto paled, "Your on." Mizuki smiled.

.

Five hours later Naruto sat with Mizuki in the Hokage's office waiting for the Third to respond to their story.

The Sandaime hmmed, "So let me get this straight, Mizuki, you bet Naruto that he couldn't get forbidden scroll of sealing; and Naruto, you accepted that bet and proceeded to win it?"

Both ninja nodded and Sarutobi sighed and looked at Mizuki, "Well Mizuki I'll be honest with you, influencing naïve genin into traitorous acts is frowned upon, and it will get 15 years in our shinobi prison. However, I'm willing to take five years off of your sentence if you'll graduate Naruto as first in his class."

"What!?" Naruto shouted, "That is so cheating old man!"

Hiruzen shrugged, "Yes it is, and since we didn't set the prizes for our bet then the rules say the winner gets to choose what they want, and I want you to stay a Konoha shinobi at least until you make chunin."

Mizuki stared at Naruto's scowl in bewilderment. He'd accept the Hokage's offer and then get the heck out of the crazy town as soon as he was free.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

_Naruto was not happy that his jiji had out smarted him, but on the day of team selections he knew he'd out smart his jiji back._

_._

Kakashi barely bothered to look up from his precious Icha Icha as Sasuke finished his introduction, he said, "Well it's really cute that you all think you're ninja now, but you're not."

"What?!", Sakura's shriek caused the jonin to wince as his sensitive hearing was assaulted. This genin team he would not miss.

"That's right," the one-eyed man said, "You have to pass one more test before you'll be considered _real _genin, and this test has a 66% fail rate. If you fail you go back to the academy, bye-bye promotion and class standing. The test starts at 0600 tomorrow in training ground seven. Oh, and don't eat breakfast, or you'll throw up." With that Kakashi shushened away without bothering to look at the expressions on his temporary students faces. If he had, he would have seen the expression of manic glee mixed with hope that suffused Naruto's face.

.

The next day Kakashi showed up to training ground seven to have his ears pierced by the shriek of Haruno telling him quite pointlessly that he was late. Of course he was late. Honestly genin these days. The sooner he got rid of this team the better.

The man quickly explained the rules of his test without bothering to take his nose out of his book and then listened and heard the sound of two genin rushing to hide in the undergrowth. Well that ought to give him at least five minutes of uninterrupted readin- wait two? Kakashi looked to where the three genin had been standing to see Naruto still there with a grin on his face as he held up a deck of cards, "Hey sensei, do you like poker?"

The jonin stared blankly at his blond student, and eloquently said, "What?"

.

Two hours later Kakashi and Naruto were enjoying their longest uninterrupted game of poker yet. Sasuke and Sakura had of course tried to steal the bells but the jonin easily stopped them each time then cheerfully returned to his game with Naruto. Naruto was just winning a rather sizable pot when the bell rang and two defeated genin came stumbling out of hiding glaring at the blond for not taking this seriously and at Kakashi because... well because that was all they could do to him.

The jonin stood and shook his head with a sad sigh, "I'm disappointed with you three, stealing bells from a jonin isn't all that hard, but-"

"You're darn right it isn't." Naruto interrupted while holding up two shiny, faintly jingling bells. Kakashi's hand moved to where the bells had been almost before his mind gave he order, Sasuke looked like he was about to have an apoplectic fit.

Sakura, rambled, "What? How did, where did. What the heck Naruto!"

The blond boy shrugged and said, "It isn't all that hard to steal bells from someone who's getting their butt handed to them in poker; after all, at that point their worrying about other things."

Kakashi was torn between being impressed with Naruto's cleverness or annoyed at being tricked by a twelve year old. Naruto once again surprised everyone as he tossed one bell to Sakura and one to Sasuke, "There now you two will pass and I'll fail. Wow having both your teammate's pass while you fail is almost worthy of being called dead last. Don't you think Sensei?"

The jonin scratched the back of his head as he said, "Actually Naruto, the real way to pass this test is to show teamwork, and you just passed this test in the smartest way I've ever seen. Keep it up kid, I just might make you team leader."

"Nerts." Naruto scowled.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

_It would seem that odds would be pretty good that a genin team's first C-ranked mission be pretty straight forward and easy. For team seven, not so much._

_._

Two of the genin of team seven stared in horror at the A-ranked jonin that was casually talking about killing them all. Naruto decided that no one stupid enough to lose their eyebrows could possibly be that scary, and promptly told the missing-nin so.

The nuke-nin growled, "You little punk! I'll show how scary I am as I wipe the floor with your sensei."

The blond shrugged, "Okay."

Eyebrow less man blinked, "Huh?"

"I bet you that you'll beat my sensei." Naruto said.

Kakashi whipped his head around to look at his student, "Hey! You're not supposed to bet against me Naruto!"

The blond stared at his sensei then shrugged, "Meh." That said he turned back to the missing-nin, "Is it a bet?"

The missing-nin leaned back against the tree his sword was sunk in and folded his arms, "What's the pot?"

Naruto puckered his lips in thought, "I don't know. How about we let the winner decide what the loser will give when we know who wins."

"Hmm, a blank check." The enemy laughed, "I like you kid I'll take your bet."

The blond grinned, "Sweet!" he turned to his sensei, "You may carry on now, our negotiations are done."

Kakashi glared at his student, "If I survive this, you are going to _pay._" The silver haired jonin lifted his hitai-ate to reveal his sharingan eye and got into a defensive stance.

The missing-nin laughed and cast a kirigakure no jutsu. Then disappeared into the fog his jutsu created while letting off massive amounts of killing intent. Sasuke was so overwhelmed by the KI that he turned his kunai on himself, and was only saved from doing something stupid by the timely interruption of his sensei's encouraging words.

Suddenly the nuke-nin appeared and tried to cut through Kakashi. The silver-haired jonin manged to dodge and the two jonin traded blows for almost a minute. Blows that brought the two jonin ever closer to the water. After a final trade of blows the enemy, vanished back into his fog, and left a panting Kakashi searching for him.

After a lull of several minutes Naruto pointed west and shouted, "Over there sensei!"

Kakashi whipped around to face the direction his student had told him, and was promptly shoved into the water by his opponent and captured in a sphere of water. The silver-haired man growled, "Naruto... I. Am going. To _kill. _You."

The blond gave a sheepish smile and turned to the enemy, "So I guess I win huh?"

The missing-nin shrugged, "It looks that way what do you want?"

Sakura palmed her forehead. Why oh why did she have to be put on this team? Naruto was nuts, and totally unreliable, and Sasuke was a coward who tried to kill himself at the first sign of trouble. Useless! The girl took a bracing sigh. Well, if no one else was going to do something she'd have to step up and save sensei herself. She wasn't sure how yet cause she knew she wasn't all that impressive, but she was the only one who could.

She took out a kunai and prepared to make her heroic rescue when Naruto spoke, "Well since I won your fee will be to... stop being our enemy."

The nuke-nin blinked, "That's it?"

The blond nodded, "Yep, but that means no killing any of us and no causing us to fail our mission, by killing Tazuna."

The missing-nin frowned, "That's a tall order. What happens if I don't comply?"

Naruto shrugged, "Karma gets you."

The enemy laughed, "That's it? Listen kid I like you and I'm glad that you helped me with my mission but I'm not giving up the amount of money I've been promised just because _Karma will get me. _Sorry kid bets off." The nin raised a kunai to stab the immobilized Kakashi with.

.

The Sanbi stirred. Even since it had been freed from the spiral man it had been hiding in this inland lake sleeping to regain it's strength so it could go out and destroy the spiral man who had damaged its pride, but now it couldn't sleep, because something was polluting it's precious sanctuary with foreign energy.

The Sanbi reached out to find the source of the pollution, and when it did it surged forward, it _was_ a little hungry.

.

Once again two of the genin stared at the enemy with horror as he moved to kill their sensei, but Naruto just stood there with his arms crossed, as if waiting for his _karma _to come and save the day.

Right before the kunai entered the sphere where Kakashi was trapped a large turtle like mouth rose up around the nuke-nin and swallowed him whole. The silver-haired jonin dropped into the water and couldn't move because of his shock, Sasuke and Naruto were equally frozen as the creature came around to get the other one.

Surprisingly it was Sakura who reacted, she tied the ninja wire into a lasso and threw it over her sensei. Then she pulled with all her might and got him out of the water just as the monstrous head came up for it's second bite. As soon as Kakashi was standing all five people took off running until they were well out of sight of that cursed lake.

After they had all regained their breath Naruto turned to Sakura looking impressed, "Wow Sakura, I never thought I'd say this, but good job, you managed to do something useful." The blond put his arms behind his head in a cocky pose, "Of course it was my bet and bad Karma that killed the nuke-nin, but still you managed to save sensei from certain doom."

Kakashi snorted, "Yeah saving I wouldn't have needed if it hadn't been for you you brat."

Naruto shrugged, "Well I guess Karma wanted you to be ok otherwise there's no way _Sakura _would have been able to be useful enough to save you."

The girl turned to her teammate with a glare that could have made anything self-combust and growled, "Naaruutoo, you ruin _everything._"

A/N- Sorry this is _very very _late. I blame Thanksgiving. ~TAS


	6. Chapter 6

Naruto stared wide-eyed at the massive leg of sand that crushed the trees near where he was standing. "Whoa! You just took out, like, 20 trees!"

The sand monster froze and then a smile that really didn't look natural spread across the creatures face, "I am the master of destruction, no one can best me!"

The bond stared blankly at the beast before him, then a slow mischievous smile filled his face, "wanna bet?"

20 minutes later a tired Sauske and Sakura were sprinting thought the trees towards the village. Running for their lives. Behind them a giant toad and a humongous raccoon made of sand were cackling madly while smashing every tree in sight. Including the one the two genin had previously been standing in.

Meanwhile Oakie the tree was shaking clear down to his roots. Not since the Great Tree Massacre 13 years ago had there been such great destruction among his brethren.

THUD! Eek! T- t-the creatures leg was so close! Its other leg rose up and descended right over where Oaky the tree stood.

Oakie wished he had eyes to close but every one of his leaves was trapped looking up at the descending doom. Oaky and his near by brethren cried out in silent terror right before the foot of sand crushed them all.

...

...

...

Oakie the tree was alive.

He looked around himself in confusion, what happened?

Just then the little yellow monster that had started the Second Great Tree Massacre laughed, "I won!"

Oakie looked around at his brethren and thanked his lucky stars that it had been the raccoon that crushed him.


End file.
